Lessons from Summer Meal programs

An article in the Spokesman Review details the summer programs for meals for kids and the possible effects of the upcoming Child Nutrition Reauthorization that may be beneficial for feeding the children in our state that need support. Keeping programs viable in the current recession is of high interest to our communities.

How do we spend our lunch money?

An article in The Des Moines Register by Philip Brasher claims that the government says it wants kids to eat more fruit and vegetable but doesn’t back it up with cold, hard cash.

“For every dollar that the U.S. Department of Agriculture spent buying commodities for school lunches last year, 55 cents went to beef, chicken and cheese vs. about 23 cents for fruits and vegetables.”

The single food item that tops the list is mozzarella cheese.

This is a thought provoking article with many interesting facts cited from a wide range of sources. One important item: Congress is due to update the school lunch program this year. That makes now an important time to be informed and make your opinions known.

An interesting read

The School Food Revolution: Public Food and the Challenge of Sustainable Development is a new book about the current debates that revolve around the school cafeteria: nutrition, sustainability, social inclusion, economics, etc.
To the authors it it is becoming clear that the school food service can provide many benefits. The book examines many of the fashionable trends in foods and schools and analyzes the results that have actually been produced in diverse communities including programs like the UN’s Home Grown Program.

New grants available - Concept papers due May 21st

The WSDA has announced $2.5 million is available in grants for specialty crops. The grants will be given to projects that aim to enhance the production of and access to Washington specialty crops. Specialty crops are defined by USDA as fruits, vegetables, tree nuts, dried fruits, horticulture, and nursery crops (including floriculture).
They are looking for concept papers now. If you have an idea and want to apply this link at the WSDA website gives all the details. Since the initial concept papers are due May 21st, there isn’t much time, but the process is relatively easy and we would be glad to help If your project is chosen you will have additional time to complete the solicitation process.
If you have any questions or require clarification send an email to FarmtoSchool@agr.wa.gov.

Local Farms-Healthy Kids Article by WSDA's Director

Valoria Loveland will be retiring as Director of the Washington State Departmetn of Agriculture as of next Monday, but she took the time to write an article about Local Farms-Healthy Kids Act and it's benefits for the state of Washington. See it in Saturday's Yakima Herald-Republic.

Here's a quote:

It's so gratifying to find solutions and build connections to address seemingly unrelated priorities. This farm-to-school opportunity will help support the profitability of Washington farms and preserve those beautiful open spaces that we all love. And every parent knows that good habits start early. With Local Farms, Healthy Kids, we'll help young people make the right choices for a lifetime.

Legislature Passes Local Farms-Healthy Kids Bill

It may not make school lunch taste any better, but the Legislature approved a bill Tuesday that will put Washington-grown produce on the menu in school cafeterias around the state.
Senate Bill 6483 relaxes food-purchasing regulations to allow schools and state-run institutions to buy fresh produce and meats from Washington farmers -- even if locally grown products cost a little more than their processed or canned counterparts.
Additionally, the measure creates a number of pilot programs and grants that would allow food banks to accept local produce, allow farmers markets to accept food-stamp cards, and pay for Washington-grown fruits and vegetables to be served at schools where more than half of students get free or reduced lunch.

School Lunches May Get to Go Local!

The Local Farms-Healthy Kids legislation passed the State of Washington House of Representatives yesterday due, in no small part, to support from concerned citizens around the state.

Michael Bennett, President of Pacific Prepak, a local food processing and distribution company, wrote a great Op-Ed with Joan Crooks of the Washington Environmental Council on the bill: Local Farms — Healthy Kids a hearty investment.

Local Farms-Healthy Kids still needs funding

The Local Farms-Healthy Kids legislation has passed the first critical tests in the Washington Legislature. The policy has passed both the House and the Senate with nearly unanimous support. The next challenge will be attaching the funds to the program.

Diane Urbani de la Paz of the Peninsula Daily News asks whether there is enough support for Local Farms-Healthy Kids to pass the budget test.

If you'd like to have your voice heard on the issue, you can contact the Legislative Hotline at 1-800-562-6000 this week and ask your Senators to fully fund Local Farms-Healthy Kids.

Local Farms, Healthy Kids Passes House!

The Local Farms-Healthy Kids Bill is moving along through our state legislature.
The Washington House of Representatives passed the Local Farms-Healthy Kids bill 95-1 on February 15. There are still many hurdles ahead.

To learn more about the bill, see Jennifer Langston's article in the Seattle P-I: Bill aims to put more farm-fresh foods on school lunch menus. She describes some challenges to farm to school programs, and provides some insight into how the Local Farms-Healthy Kids bill addresses them. From the article:

"I don't think there's another state that's putting together such a
comprehensive soup-to-nuts package," said Thomas Forster, policy director for
the national Community Food Security Coalition.

Local Produce goes to Olympia

Published January 27, 2008

Hi all, Rebecca here again...this is an exciting time to be a part of farm to school, because things are heating up!

The momentum for the farm to school bill, Local Farms-Healthy Kids keeps building! The bill had two very successful hearings last week in the House and Senate and support keeps growing. GoSkagit.com provides a perspective on the bill from a Mt. Vernon meeting hosted by the Washington Sustainable Food and Farming Network. The discussion was the second in a speaker series called Healthy Farms, Healthy Puget Sound, put on by the network, People for a Healthy Puget Sound and the food co-op.

Alongside the efforts to get nutritious food into our kid's lunches, others are catching on to the local food movement. Check out John Dodge's Olympian article about what the South Puget Sound Community College culinary-arts program is up to, right next door to the state Capitol:

Within a stone's throw of the House and Senate hearing rooms where the Local
Farms-Healthy Kids and Communities Act was unveiled last week, the Fresh
Measures cafeteria operated by the South Puget Sound Community College
culinary-arts program was preparing dishes with fruits and vegetables supplied
by Lewis and Thurston County organic farmers.

Local Farms-Healthy Kids heats up!

Hi, Rebecca here. Now this is exciting! To learn more about what you can do to support Local Farms-Healthy Kids visit www.environmentalpriorities.org/local-farms

Bill aims to put more farm-fresh foods on school lunch menus

Thursday, January 10, 2008
Last updated 11:59 a.m. PT

By JENNIFER LANGSTON
P-I REPORTER

Kia Kozun knew that lugging 40-pound boxes of vegetables single-handedly from a Sequim farm to a friend's bistro wasn't entirely sustainable.

The outreach manager for Nash's Organic Produce wanted to sell to school cafeterias. For five months, she borrowed a certified kitchen to shred cabbage and wash dirty lettuce.

Because of insurance and liability standards, the payments flowed through a maze of regional and national distributors, who all took a cut.

"No one says kids shouldn't have healthy food in schools, but what we're up against is a really huge industrial food system," said Kozun, who recently took a break from those time-sucking efforts to supply a school district five miles away.
Harvesting carrots
Zoom Gilbert W. Arias / P-I
Eloina Najera stacks carrots harvested this month at Nash's Organic Produce in Sequim in Clallam County as co-worker Adam Mihalik tosses others onto a discard pile.

Legislation to be proposed in Olympia next week could catapult Washington to the forefront of national efforts to get more farm-fresh, locally grown food into lunches at schools and at other institutions. It borrows from piecemeal efforts in other states, but would go further.

Farm-to-school efforts are multiplying as parents worry about food safety, states look to cut greenhouse gases, and environmentalists try to preserve land by bolstering farm economies. There have been relatively few successes in Washington, which the proposed legislation aims to change.

"I don't think there's another state that's putting together such a comprehensive soup-to-nuts package," said Thomas Forster, policy director for the national Community Food Security Coalition.

Changes pending in the federal farm bill would clearly allow public schools to prefer local growers. In the past, the Agriculture Department has maintained that that kind of favoritism is illegal.

If the federal language passes, it would open to the door for states and local school districts to overhaul bidding and procurement rules that require government agencies to buy the cheapest food.

"School nutritionists should have the discretion to say, 'I want to buy these apples from Wenatchee; they're fresher and better for my kids,' without having to go through a bureaucratic nightmare or break the law," said Mo McBroom, policy director for the Washington Environmental Council.

The farm-to-school legislation is one of the environmental community's top four priorities in Olympia in 2008. It has attracted support from parents, public health employees, child advocates, state school nutritionists and some farmers.

But its passage isn't guaranteed. In a short session, the bill could get mired in questions such as how to define "locally grown" and how to allow preferences for Washington products without angering other states.

It also remains to be seen whether the Legislature will spend the $4 million that the groups are requesting in a tight budget year. School nutritionists are lobbying for an additional $4 million to allow low-income children who qualify for reduced-price lunches to eat free.

"We've all been focused on the environment, the health of kids and supporting small businesses, and I'm hoping that will be the right combo to jar loose some of the money," said Rep. Eric Pettigrew, D-Seattle, who is sponsoring the farm-to-school bill. "It may not be everything we want, but it's a starting point."

Eric Boutin, nutrition supervisor for the Auburn School District, visits farmers markets in his off hours. He waits until the lines go down, hands someone a card and asks about buying carrots or raspberries in the quantities he needs to serve 10,000 lunches. Most often, he never hears back.
"I've called or e-mailed every farm from our area, and it's a struggle ... to get that commitment," he said.

That's why the proposed legislation would fund two new employees in the state Agriculture Department to help connect schools and farms and wholesalers, and spread the word about what's seasonally available.

It would also spend $250,000 to research how farms might collaboratively market and distribute products. A community processing plant with proper insurance and food safety certifications could help small farmers crack new markets, for instance.

One of the biggest hurdles on the school side is funding, with food budgets of roughly $1 for each child's lunch.

The proposed bill would spend $2 million on grants enabling schools with large numbers of low-income students to serve more Washington fruits and vegetables as snacks.

The measure would also allow school nutrition directors and state agencies to buy meat, dairy products and produce from Washington without going through a bureaucratic process that forces them to accept the lowest bid.

But in Seattle, the school district has even stricter policies than the state's, requiring quotes for purchases over $15,000 and formal bids for anything over $50,000.

"It doesn't mean it couldn't be changed, but it would take some work," said Anita Finch, nutrition services director for Seattle Public Schools. "Bid laws are set up to make things competitive, so there's no little gentleman's or lady's agreements going on under the table."

McBroom, with the Washington Environmental Council, said the legislation would create a more flexible climate for schools, universities or prisons to take the initiative to support state agriculture. Much more work would be necessary.

But if the environmental community is serious about preserving farmland, it needs to do more than buy development rights and push land-use regulations, McBroom said.

"We want farmers to continue farming, not just because they can't build a condo on their farm -- which is something we want to prevent -- but also because it's profitable to remain in farming," she said.

Large farming interests say they support the farm-to-school bill in concept, but haven't seen the details. Their participation would boost its chances of success.

"One of the biggest detail devils is what is local -- that issue has been profound for at least 29 years that I know of," said Chris Cheney, a lobbyist who represents dairy farmers, poultry producers, hop growers and other agricultural interests.

The legislation currently defines "local" as anything planted, cultivated, harvested, raised or collected within the state.

Because some tree-fruit growers and dairies pool products with producers in Oregon or Idaho, it might make sense to broaden the incentives to food grown in the Northwest, Cheney said.

But small-scale, organic producers might prefer the definition of "local" to be narrowed. If the grant money can be spent on food grown anywhere in the state, schools are likely to go through wholesalers that draw from large Eastern Washington farms, they argue.

"Unless the food manager is someone who really wants to see that happen, a lot of them are going to say this is too much bother, and I'll just order through my distributor," said Steve Hallstrom, who grows organic lettuce and vegetables at Let Us Farm in Grays Harbor County.

Bill supporters say the most important thing is to establish a state farm-to-school program that can be expanded or tweaked in future years.

After battles that have historically pitted environmentalists against the state's agricultural powers, legislators hope such a program could help bridge that divide.

"It certainly is one of those win-wins if we can do it right," said Sen. Brian Hatfield, a Pacific County Democrat and a bill sponsor. "The conversations are taking place between our rural ag communities and the more urban environmental folks to say, 'Hey, we've got a lot in common here.' "

AT A GLANCE

Legislation proposed by the Washington Environmental Council would:

* Spend $2 million to get more Washington-grown fruits and vegetables into at least 75 schools serving low-income students.

* Hire two full-time employees in the state Agriculture Department to connect schools and growers.

* Spend $250,000 to research how farms could collectively process, package and distribute products in quantities that large cafeterias need.

* Allow schools to buy Washington-grown produce, meat and dairy products without formal bids, as long as prices don't "reasonably exceed" other choices.

* Adopt goals and policies encouraging state agencies, universities and schools to buy local food when available and comparable in price.

* Spend $830,000 to allow more low-income families and seniors to buy nutritious food at farmers markets.

* Spend nearly $1 million on a pilot program allowing food banks to buy from local farmers.

For more information, visit wecprotects.org/state/index.cfm.

State Rep. Christopher Hurst favors legislation requiring schools to include "carbon costs" when evaluating food bids. Factoring in environmental damage from greenhouses gases involved in shipping food could make local products "cheaper" than other options.

P-I reporter Jennifer Langston can be reached at 206-448-8130 or jenniferlangston@seattlepi.com.

© 1998-2008 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Digesting the News at Gristmill

Ann Cooper, Berkeley Unified School District's "Renegade Lunch Lady", and Kate Adamick, a school food consultant based in New York, have teamed up to analyze the links between various food news items that have come up in the past week or so. They conclude that corporations have far too much power in the policy debates around school food. Their post is over at Gristmill, the green blog at Grist.org: The school-lunch dog fight: In the clash over school lunches, who's watching out for the kids?

While we all know that corporate interests are at play in school food practice, especially when it comes to "a la carte" or "competitive" foods sold outside the main school lunches, it is worth reading their opinions about the various groups at the table influencing decisionmaking.

It is nice to know that school food issues have reached the level of public awareness that it's regularly in the news and federal regulation over school food nutrition is controversial even among healthy or sustainable food advocates. The stronger the debate, the better the resulting policies!

Efforts to Govern School Snack Standards at the Federal Level

New York Times writer Kim Severson has written an article about the Farm Bill Amendment to define standards for snacks and drinks sold in schools: Effort to Limit Junk Food in Schools Faces Hurdles. Even if the Farm Bill doesn't pass, or passes without the amendment addressing foods sold outside the lunch program, sponsors say they will push to get it passed in some other way. The measure is controversial in that some think it is a good starting place for improving food in schools, and others wanting stronger measures and fewer exemptions for things like sports drinks. One of the touchiest issues is this:

"Although states would not be able to pass stronger restrictions, individual school districts could."

In different places, the battle to improve school food happens at different levels of decisionmaking, often based on where the climate is friendliest for change. If state legislatures are ready to take a stand on school food, they may be the place to enact the strictest rules on healthy food standards. In many places, schools or school districts may be where progress is being made. So the limitation of state power will be more problematic in some places than others. Though, as noted in the article, school district decisionmaking may also be affected by federal guidelines:

“My little fights in school districts are just going to be harder and harder because they’ll say, Well, here are the federal guidelines,” said Dr. Susan Rubin of Chappaqua, N.Y., a nutritionist who helped found the Better School Food advocacy group.

Any thoughts about how this will affect your efforts at improving school food?

Fries and Cookies Pay the Bills in North Carolina Schools

Andrea Weigle at The News & Observer, a North Carolina paper, has written an excellent piece entitled Kids' waistlines vs. bottom line about the difficulties of providing healthy food to school children on tight budgets and complicated funding systems. Schools are trying to include healthier choices. As in Seattle Public Schools, they have switched many products and ingredients to include higher fiber and whole grains, for example, and even the brand name a la carte items are often of higher nutritional value than their counterparts in stores and restaurants.

North Carolina has even piloted new standards for nutritional content, but pilots failed because the healthier foods were more expensive and they lost the extra income from selling "a la carte" snack and popular foods, so the schools lost piles of money. In the NC system, those a la carte sales are expected to provide revenue for a significant portion of lunch budgets, withouth which free and reduced lunch reimbursements and paid lunch proceeds fall far short of necessary funds. Part of the problem with the pilot programs for healthier foods is that the state legislature passed dietary rules without enough money to cover the losses during the transition. [Note: In the UK, schools that increased local purchasing, more fresh foods, and meals cooked on-site have found that they experience a dip in sales, but that school lunch participation eventually rebounded and increased. Of course this is specific to the situation and requires extra efforts and ability to weather the dip.] These are important considerations for those of us who wish for change in a hurry, believing that if we just tell schools to serve better food, it will happen. As we're all learning, it's much more complicated than that, and that legislative solutions must be well-researched and include adequate funding to make the transitions a success.

Another interesting tidbit from the article:

The situation is further complicated by a U.S. Department of Agriculture requirement that school cafeteria meals provide a minimum number of calories. Nutritious foods alone often fall short, forcing schools to add high-calorie dishes or risk losing their federal free- and reduced-price lunch subsidy.

Some of the problems raised in the article are specific to North Carolina's method of funding school lunch programs. Does anyone know the details in Washington, and how they affect schools' options? If so, speak up in the comments--we'd all love to learn about it! (Or come to the next Farm-to-School meeting for the School Nutrition Directors panel and ask them how the funding system affects their options.)

Popular Political Blog Addresses School Lunches

Over at Daily Kos, an extremely popular progressive blog with lots of contributors, a writer with alias OrangeClouds115 has written an article, provocatively called Vegetables of Mass Destruction - Farm to Cafeteria that addresses nutrition requirements, budget limitations and other barriers. The author refers to the Seattle farm-to-school concerns in the PI articles last month, as well as to a number of other articles we've noted on this blog. There are 125 comments, and lots of them at the top are not on topic, but there are some interesting ones buried deeper in the list. One parent, "Zic" says,

Big problem? The prices the schools can pay mean most farmers would actually loose money on the deal. Remember, farmers need to pay labor, insurance, and retirement out of their meager take, as well as taxes, equipment, etc.
That's part of the problem, people buy food based on price not on quality.

Big Local News Story on Farm to School!

Farmed Out, Jennifer Langston's series of articles about Farm to School in the Seattle area, is on the cover of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (yesterday and today)! The series can be found at http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/specials/farmtoschool/. Please spread the word about these articles--they are well-researched and examine the specific issues in our region.

Living Food: Link farm, school. It's a big news day for Farm to School! There's also an editorial in the P-I with a reference to current legislative efforts:

"Environmental groups and others say they will push the Legislature to authorize more efforts. Mo McBroom of the Washington Environmental Council noted, "This is something that people care about, that parents care about, that the governor cares about, that farmers care about. Why are we behind on this?"

Come to the Farm to School Connections Team Meeting on Monday, October 22nd, to hear more about Washington Environmental Council's work on legislation for farm to school and institutions!

From Before the Birth of the Digest

9/6/07 - School Lunch Abroad - Culinate.com writer Deborah Madison tells an inspiring tale of visiting school lunchrooms in France's Loire Valley on a trip with the International Exchange Forum on Children, Obesity, Food Choice, and the Environment. Ms. Madison describes not only quality food and nutritious lunches, but also the pleasant eating environment and family-style service at the schools. Be sure to take a look at the comments at the end of her article--it's often where the interesting questions arise!

5/22/07 - Grow Montana reports on passage of a Montana Senate Bill that allows flexibility for direct purchase of local food product for institutions when it meets certain criteria for price and quality.